Chapter 20 The Lady of the Forest by L. T. Meade
PUNISHED
Clementina was a spoiled child, and in consequence was as disagreeable and as full of herself as such children are apt to be. She was neither beautiful nor clever; she had no outward gifts to counterbalance her imperious airs and selfish ways; consequently she was only popular with her parents and with herself.
The Marmadukes were very rich people, and although Clementina had no real friends, she had many toadies – girls who praised her for the accomplishments she did not possess, for the beauty which had been denied her, and for the talents and cleverness which she knew nothing whatever about. Clementina both believed in and appreciated flattery. Flattery made her feel comfortable; it soothed her vanity and fed her self-esteem. It was not at all difficult to persuade her that she was clever, beautiful, and accomplished. But of all her acquirements there was none of which she was so very proud as of her riding. She was no coward, and she rode fairly well for a town girl. She had always the advantage of the best horses, the most stylish habits, and the most carefully equipped groom to follow her. On horseback her so-called friends told her she looked superb; therefore on horseback she greatly liked to be.
Rachel’s words that morning and Rachel’s unconcealed contempt had stung Clementina’s vanity to the quick. She was quite determined to show this little nobody, this awkward country girl, what proper riding meant; and she galloped off on Ruby with her heart beating high with pride, anger, and a sense of exultation; she would canter lightly away in the direction of the Avonsyde stables, and be ready to meet Rachel haughty and triumphant when she returned wearily home on that dull little pony, Surefoot.
Surefoot, however, was not a dull pony. He was extremely gentle and docile and affectionate, and although he hated the rider he had on his back that morning, and resented to the bottom of his honest little heart the indignity of being whipped by her, still one sound from Rachel’s voice was sufficient to restrain him and to keep him from punishing the young lady who chose to ride him in the manner she deserved. Clementina had ridden Surefoot and he had instantly broken into a canter, but at the sound of Rachel’s voice he had moderated his speed Clementina quite believed that Surefoot had obeyed her firm hand; and now, as she galloped away on Ruby, she laughed at the fears expressed for her safety by Rachel and Robert, the groom.
“They’re jealous,” she said to herself; “they’re both of them jealous, and they don’t want me to have the only decent horse of the party. Oh, yes, Ruby, my fine fellow, you shall have a touch of the whip presently. I’m not afraid of you.”
She felt for her little silver-mounted riding-whip as she spoke and lightly flicked Ruby’s ears with it.
Back went the ears of the half-trained little horse at once, lightning glances seemed to flash from his red-brown eyes, and in a moment he had taken to his heels and was away.
His movement almost resembled flying, and for a little time Clementina persuaded herself that she enjoyed it. This was riding indeed! this was a gallop worth having! What splendid use she could make of it with her school-friends by and by. These were her first sensations, but they were quickly followed by others less pleasurable. Ruby seemed to be going faster and faster; his legs went straight before him; he rushed past obstacles; he disdained to take the slightest notice of Clementina’s feeble little attempts to pull him in. She lost her breath, and with it in a great measure her self-control. Were they going in the right direction? No; she was quite sure they were not; she had never seen that wide expanse of common; she had never noticed that steep descent; she had never observed that gurgling, rushing avalanche of water; and – oh, good God! Ruby was rushing to it. She screamed and attempted violently to pull him in; he shook his head angrily and flew forward faster than before; for Ruby was not of the gentle nature of Surefoot, and he could not forgive even the very slight indignity which Clementina had offered him. The wretched girl began to scream loudly.
“I shall be killed! I shall be killed! Oh! will no one save me?” she screamed.
Her cries seemed to madden Ruby. He drew up short, put his head between his legs, and with an easy movement flung Clementina off his back on to the ground. The next moment he himself was out of sight.
Clementina found herself sitting in the middle of a bog – a bog not deep enough to drown her, but quite wet enough, quite uncomfortable enough, to soak through her riding-habit and to render her thoroughly wretched. At first, when Ruby had dislodged her from his back, her sensations were those of relief; then she was quite certain every bone in her body was broken; then she was equally convinced that the slow and awful death of sinking in a bog awaited her. She was miles from home; there was not a soul in sight; and yet, try as she would, she could not raise herself even to a standing position, for the treacherous ground gave way whenever she attempted to move.
Her fall had shaken her considerably, and for a time she sat motionless, trying to recover her breath and wondering if arms and legs were all smashed.
“Oh, what a wicked girl Rachel is!” she said at last. “What right had she to go out on a wild horse like that? She must have done it for a trick; she must have done it on purpose; she meant me to ride Ruby coming home, and so she tantalized me and tried to rouse my spirit. Margaret and Jessie Dawson say that I am just full of spirit, and I never can brook that sneering way, particularly from a mere child like Rachel. Well, well, she’s punished now, for I shall probably die of this. If all my bones aren’t broken, and I firmly believe they are, and if I don’t sink in this horrid bog – which I expect I shall – I’m safe to have rheumatic fever and to die of it, and then what will Rachel do? She’ll never know an easy moment again as long as she lives. She’ll be sorry for the tricks she played me when she thinks of me lying in my early grave. Oh, dear! oh, dear! what shall I do? what shall I do?”
Poor Clementina threw up her hands, by so doing fastening herself more firmly in the odious bog, and burst into a loud wailing cry. She was cold and wet now, the excitement of her wild race was over, and as the moments flew on, lengthening themselves into half-hours and hours, she became thoroughly frightened. Oh, how awful if the night should overtake her while she sat there! And yet what more likely? for not a soul had passed the place since her accident. As her anger cooled and her fright increased, several prickings of that dull conscience of hers smote the unhappy girl. After all, was Rachel to blame for what had happened? Had she not begged and even implored of her not to ride Ruby? Had not Robert spoken freely of what would happen if she did so? Oh, if only she had listened to their voices! if only she had not been so self-confident! She pictured them all safe and sound now at home at Avonsyde. She imagined them sitting in the pleasant armory chatting over the day’s adventures and most likely forgetting all about her. Abby and the boys, if occupied over any exciting game, would be certain to forget her; little Kitty, to whom she had always been specially cross, would most likely rejoice in her absence; Rachel, if she had time to give her a thought, would be sure to be possessed with a sense of triumph; and Phil – ah! well, somehow or other Phil was different from other boys and girls. Phil had a look in his eyes, Phil had a way about him which Clementina recognized as belonging to the rare and beautiful spirit of unselfishness. Phil’s small, thin, white face was ever and always alive and glowing with sympathy; his eyes would darken and expand at the mere mention of anybody’s trouble, and again that little sensitive face would sparkle and glow with delight over anybody’s joy. Clementina, sitting now in the middle of the bog, the most lonely and wretched girl alive, could not help feeling comforted as she thought of Phil; it was more than probable that if all the others forgot her Phil might remember.
While Clementina was waiting in a state of absolute despair matters were not so hopeless for her as she supposed. The children when they reached Avonsyde gave an instant alarm, and steps were at once taken to search for the missing girl. But it is one thing to be lost in the forest and another thing to be found. Ruby had taken Clementina in the opposite direction from Avonsyde, and when she was submerged in the bog she was many miles away. Robert, shaking his head and muttering that a willful girl must come to grief, and that it would be well if they ever saw Miss Marmaduke alive again, went off to saddle a fresh horse to go in search of her. Other people also started on the same errand; and Phil, whose pale little face was all aglow with excitement, rushed into the stables, and securing a horse, mounted it and rode away after the others. The boy was a splendid rider, having been accustomed to mounting all kinds of steeds from his babyhood; but he was tired now, and neither Miss Griselda nor his mother would have allowed him to go had they known anything about it. But the elder members of the family were all away, and the children and servants were only acting on their own responsibility.
Phil soon caught up Robert, and the two trotted together side by side.
“I’m quite certain I saw Ruby turning to the left after he went down that steep bank,” said Phil.
“Then if he did he made for the bog and the waterfall as likely as not,” said Robert.
“Oh, Robert, you don’t suppose Clementina has been drowned in one of the bogs?” exclaimed Phil in an accent of terror. “You don’t, you can’t suppose that?”
The man favored the boy with a queer glance.
“If Miss Marmaduke was like you, Master Lovel, or like Miss Rachel or Miss Kitty, why, I’d say there weren’t a hope of her; but being what she is – well, maybe she’ll be given a little more time to mend her manners in.”
Phil’s face assumed a puzzled expression. He said nothing further, and the two rode hard and fast.
In this manner they did at last find poor Clementina, who, much subdued and softened, received them with almost rapture.
“There’s nothing like affliction for bringing characters of that sort low,” muttered Robert as he helped the young lady on his own horse. “And now, where’s that little beauty Ruby, I wonder? Dashed hisself to pieces as likely as not agin’ some of them rocks up there. Oh, yes, and there’ll be no ’count made at all of one of the prettiest little horses I ever broke in.”
Robert had to run by Clementina’s side, who was really considerably shaken and who gave way to violent hysterics soon after they started.
“Somehow, Phil, I thought you would remember,” she said at last, turning to her little companion and speaking in a broken voice.
“Why, of course we all remembered,” said Phil. “We were all more sorry about you than I can say; and as to Rachel, she has been crying like anything. It seems a pity, Clementina, it really does, you know – ” And then he stopped.
“What seems a pity, Phil?”
“That you should be so obstinate. You know you were; and you were rude, too, for you should not have taken Rachel’s horse. It seems to me a great pity that people should try to pretend – everybody’s always trying to pretend; and what is the use of it? Now, if you had not tried to pretend that you could ride as well or better than Rachel, you wouldn’t have got into this trouble and we wouldn’t have been so terribly sorry. Where was the use of it, Clementina?” added Phil, gazing hard at the abashed and astonished young lady; “for nobody could expect you to ride as well as Rachel, who is a country girl and has been on horseback such a lot, you know.”
Phil delivered his lecture in the most innocent way, and Clementina received it with much humility, wondering all the time why she was not furiously angry; for surely this was the strangest way to speak to a girl who had been for three seasons under Captain Delacourt.
She made no reply to Phil’s harangue and rode on for some time without speaking.
Suddenly a little sigh from the boy, who kept so bravely at her side, reached her ears. She turned and looked at him. It was quite a new sensation for Clementina to observe any face critically except her own; but she did notice now the weariness round the lips and the way the slight little figure drooped forward.
“You’re tired, Phil,” she said. “You have tired yourself out to find me.”
“I am tired,” he replied. “We rode very fast, and my side aches, but it will be better by and by.”
“You can scarcely sit on your horse,” said Clementina in a tone of real feeling. “Could not your groom – Robert, I think, you call him – mount the horse and put you in front of him? He could put his arm round you and you would be nicely rested.”
“That’s a good thought, miss,” said Robert, with sudden heartiness. “And, to be sure, Master Philip do look but poorly. It’s wonderful what affliction does for them sort of characters,” he muttered under his breath as he complied with this suggestion.
When the little party got near home, Phil, who had been lying against Robert and looking more dead than alive, roused himself and whispered something to the groom. Robert nodded in reply and immediately after lifted the boy to the ground.
“I’m going to rest. Please, Clementina, don’t say I am tired,” he said; and then he disappeared down a little glade and was soon out of sight.
“Where is he going?” asked Clementina of Robert.
“To a little nest as he has made for hisself, miss, just where the trees grow thickest up there. He and me, we made it together, and it’s always dry and warm, and nobody knows of it but our two selves. He often and often goes there when he can’t bear up no longer. I beg your pardon, miss, but I expect I have no right to tell. You won’t mention what I have said to any of the family, miss?”
“No,” said Clementina; “but I feel very sorry for Phil, and I cannot understand why there should be any mystery made about his getting tired like other people.”
“Well, miss, you ask his lady mother. Perhaps she can tell you, for certain sure no one else can.”
Clementina went into the house, where she was received with much excitement and very considerable rejoicing. She presented a very sorry plight, her habit being absolutely coated with mud, her hair in disorder, and even her face bruised and discolored. But it is certain that Rachel had never admired her so much as when she came up to her and, coloring crimson, tried to take her hand.
“Phil said I was rude to you, Rachel, and I am sorry,” she muttered.
“Oh, never mind,” answered Rachel, whose own little face was quite swollen with crying. “I was so dreadfully, dreadfully unhappy, for I was afraid Ruby had killed you, Clementina.”
Clementina was now hurried away to her own room, where she had a hot bath and was put to bed, and where her mother fussed over her and grumbled bitterly at having ever been so silly as to come to such an outlandish part of the country as Avonsyde.
“I might have lost you, my precious,” she said to her daughter. “It was nothing short of madness my trusting you to those wild young Lovels.”
“Oh, mother, they aren’t a bit to blame, and I think they are rather nice, particularly Phil.”
“Yes, the boy seems a harmless, delicate little creature. I wonder if the old ladies will really make him their heir.”
“I hope they will, mother, for he is really very nice.”
In the course of the evening, as Clementina was lying on her pillows, thinking of a great many things and wondering if Phil was yet rested enough to leave his nest in the forest, there came a tap at her door, and to her surprise Phil’s mother entered. In some ways Mrs. Lovel bore a slight resemblance to Clementina; for she also was vain and self-conscious and she also was vastly taken up with self. Under these circumstances it was extremely natural that the girl and the woman should feel a strong antipathy the one to the other, and Clementina felt annoyed and the softened expression left her face as Mrs. Lovel took a chair by her bedside.
“How are you now, my dear – better, I hope?”
“Thank you, I am quite well,” answered Clementina.
“You had a wonderful escape. Ruby is not half broken in. No one attempts to ride him except Rachel.”
Clementina felt the old sullen feeling surging up in her heart.
“Such a horse should not be taken on a riding-party,” she said shortly. “I have had lessons from Captain Delacourt. I can manage almost any horse.”
“You can doubtless manage quiet horses,” said Mrs. Lovel. “Well, you have had a wonderful escape and ought to be thankful.”
“How is Phil? questioned Clementina after a pause.
“Phil? He is quite well, of course. He is in the armory with the other children.”
“He was not well when I saw him last. He looked deadly tired.”
“That was his color, my dear. He is a remarkably strong boy.”
Clementina gave a bitter little laugh.
“You must be very blind,” she said, “or perhaps you don’t wish to see. It was not just because he was pale that he could not keep his seat on horseback this afternoon. He looked almost as if he would die. You must be a very blind mother – very blind.”
Mrs. Level’s own face had turned white. She was about to make a hasty rejoinder, when the door was again opened and Miss Griselda and Miss Katharine came in.
“Not a word, my dear! I will explain to you another time – another time,” she whispered to the girl. And then she stole out of the room.